The advent of genome-scale techniques has brought a profound change in biologicalresearch, where the generation of large datasets is now commonplace in almost everyaspect of biomedical research. Such endeavors require sophisticated computational tools totransform data into knowledge, and to portray this knowledge in a human-comprehensibleform. These tools involve languages and concepts that are not part of a biologist'smainstream curriculum, or even of most biologist's mindsets. Such work may best beperformed with software packages imported from academic or commercial sources, whichthen requires computational expertise in implementing them and understanding their keyoperational variables; in other cases, context-specific computational strategies or algorithmsthat match the experimental situation are required. It is thus essential for an institution suchas the Joslin to support the activity of its laboratories and core facilities by providing accessto such computational expertise. In practice, the Bioinformatics Core will: provide the toolsand expertise in analyses of large databases. In particular it aims to support computationalanalyses of complex data by providing software tools, help and training, to provide andmaintain an infrastructure for high-end computing, and to co-ordinate the storage andinterchange of data generated in joslin laboratories by maintaining a common 'datawarehouse' for enhanced informativity of individual projects and inter-laboratory metaanalyses.
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